Sung Suk-je

Sung Suk-je
Hangeul	성석제
Hanja	成 碩 濟
Revised Romanization	Seong Seok-je
McCune- Reischauer	Sŏng Sŏkche
See also : Korean name

Sung Suk-je (or Song Sokze, born July 5, 1960 in Sangju in North Kyŏngsang Province ) is a South Korean writer.

Life

Sung Suk-je was born on July 5, 1960 in Sangju, North Kyŏngsang Province. His father, who studied and belonged to the elite despite the chaos after the Korean War , worked for some time as a civil servant, but returned shortly afterwards to his homeland, where he was the head of a three-generation family all his life. The figure of the father, who looked after the family like “a chicken spreading its wings” , was oppressive to Sung Suk-je. As this feeling intensified, he ran away from home several times, but was brought back each time. Because his brothers were older, Sung Suk-je spent his childhood almost alone. After graduating from elementary school, he read all sorts of books, such as the Bible , crime novels , romance novels or stories of Chinese warriors, all over the place . Around the time he was leaving elementary school, one of his brothers - the one on whom the whole hope of the family had rested - died while doing military service. The family moved to Seoul and he spent his youth on the outskirts of the capital. After he began studying at Yonsei University in 1979 , he joined the literary circle of Yonsei University on the recommendation of the poet Gi Hyeong-do . After completing his military service in 1984, he started his literary work in earnest. In June 1986 he made his debut as a poet .

He then worked for a short time in a publishing house and then led the life of a vagabond for six months . The experiences from this time encouraged him to become a writer. From 1987 he worked for six years in the press office of a large corporation.

In 1991 his first volume of poetry, questions on strange paths, was published . In 1993 he stopped working and started writing in earnest. The following year he published a volume of stories entitled There live monsters . Sung Suk-je, who initially began to write in a literary form somewhere between a poem and a novel , wrote his first story in 1995, The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life . After their publication he devoted himself to writing.

Having published several novels and short stories, he is still on a journey that he doesn't know how long it will take. He hears stories from people he meets on this trip and thus receives material for his novels. The essence of his novels, which move back and forth between truth and fiction, seriousness and joke, lies precisely in such stories. “A serious narrator loves the story itself. A narrator doesn't expect the story to bring him anything, but thinks about what he can do for the story. In the story of the narrator, the existing seam between history and reality is often not recognizable ”. This is how Sung Suk-je explains his creative work.

Work

Volumes of poetry

• 낯선 길 에 묻다 ( Asking someone else's path ) Seoul: Minŭmsa 1991
• 검은 암소 의 천국 ( The Black Cow's Paradise ) Seoul: Minŭmsa 1997

Volumes of stories

• 그곳에 는 어처구니 들이 산다 ( There live monsters ) Seoul: Minŭmsa 1994
• 새 가 되었네 ( Become a bird ) Seoul: Kang 1996
• 내 인생 의 마지막 4.5 초 - (New edition ( The last 4.5 seconds of my life ) Seoul: Kang 2003)
• 재미 나는 인생 ( Interesting Life ) Seoul: Kang 1997
• 아빠 아빠 오, 불쌍한 우리 아빠 ( papa, papa, oh, my poor papa ) Seoul: Minŭmsa 1997
• 홀림 ( Bewitched ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 1999
• 황만근 은 이렇게 말했다 ( This is how Hwang Mangun spoke ) Seoul: Ch'angbi 2002
• 번쩍 하는 황홀한 순간 ( The Sparkling, Enchanting Moment ) Seoul: Munhakdongne 2003
• 재미 나는 인생 ( Interesting Life ) Seoul: Kang 2004
• 어머님 이 들려 주시던 노래 ( The Song Sung by the Mother ) Seoul: Ch'angbi, 2005

Novels

• 왕 을 찾아서 ( In Search of the King ) Seoul: Ungjin 1996
• 궁전 의 새 ( The Bird in the Palace ) Seoul: Hanŭl yŏnmot 1998
• 호랑이 를 봤다 ( I saw the tiger ) Seoul: Chakka chŏngsin 1999
• 순정 ( Pure Love ) Seoul: Munhakdongne 2000
• 인간 의 힘 ( The Power of Man ) Seoul: Munhak-kwa chisŏngsa 2003

Translations into German

• The last four and a half seconds of my life and other stories , Edition Peperkorn (2009) ISBN 978-3-929181-82-1

Awards

• 1997: Hankook Ilbo Literature Prize
• 2000: Tongsŏ Literature Prize
• 2001: Lee Hyo-sŏk Literature Prize
• 2002: Tongin Literature Prize
• 2003: Prize for Contemporary Literature
• 2005: O Yŏng-su Literature Prize

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 네이버 인물 검색: 성석제 Retrieved January 21, 2014 (Korean)
2. ↑ LTI Korea: 문인 DB: Sung Suk-je ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 8, 2013 (Korean). 
3. ↑ LTI Korea: Author Database: Song Sokze ( Memento of the original dated November 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 8, 2013. 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Sung is the family name here, Suk-je is the first name.